On the broken world of Urdezha, Wendal Finn died on the hostile plains of the wasteland, one more casualty in the endless war between the city-dwellers and the clansfolk. But now Wendal has returned to his home city of Old Castle, possessed by somet...
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Falling, dwindling inside my own body, but still dregs of happiness remained to me, lingering memories of laughter, of a love and hope that once held back fear of an uncertain future. There was belief, too; an innocent confidence that the walls of Old Castle would always stand between the citizens and the wars and monsters of the wasteland. But details, specifics, who I had shared these dregs with, were fading fast. I was desperately clinging to the dying ideals of the man I once was, the man who could no longer recall what events had led him to this point. Sycamore cared nothing for what I had been through or what it had lost me – and I had lost . . . more than I could remember, something important.
For two days straight, he had been running my body into the ground, I recalled that much. The face of every victim who had died on this killing spree remained as clear fragments in my shattered memory, along with every desperate word that had begged me to stop. Two days, and now with a fresh knife wound in my side – that I was still walking at all impressed Sycamore; he saw it as a kind of strength not to be wasted. So here I was, a host for a monster, traipsing after a vengeful ghoul, heading towards my next victim. By the time Clay Hysan had led me to edge of Old Castle's western region, the siren had stopped and the shield had been deactivated. Night was falling and the air was fresh again with the chill of winter. Now the danger from the wastes had gone, a few citizens were braving the outdoors. Dressed in shirts and trousers and dresses of inexpensive fashion, they couldn't see the ghoul leading me, couldn't meet the eye of the bedraggled and blood-spattered vision of Wendal Finn, but they feared what I hosted.
Driven by instinct, they gave me a wide berth on the street, recognising deep down that an animal higher than them on the food chain was on the hunt. As I passed them, downcast expressions and defensive body language revealed the way Sycamore's presence affected their thoughts; perhaps, after all, it would be safer to return home for the night and wait for the sanctuary of morning.
Hysan's ghoul led me down a main street which ran alongside a high wall, signifying the beginning of a district known as the Fusion. Sycamore was slowly devouring my being, my essence, but he was also absorbing my generic knowledge of Urdezha, of this city, and his curiosity was piqued by the wall. He wanted to know what lay on the other side.
He was fascinated to learn that the Fusion was a small and forbidden inner district, where only the highest-ranking Scientists were allowed to go. It was home to the city's main reactor, a feat of magical engineering which tapped into the ether-growth far beneath Old Castle. The reactor drew up power for the shield generators and ether-cannons; it provided the energy by which the populace survived. Without ether, this city would crumble and blow away into the wasteland, meaning that security in the Fusion was permanently high.
Sycamore pondered this. As Hysan's oily ghoul led me away from the Fusion's wall and into a narrow side lane flanked by dirty lodging houses, my feet felt less sure on the stone paving. Strength was draining from my legs. I could hear Sycamore's thoughts, feel what he was thinking. Perhaps it was time to possess a new host. I would have to die before he could free himself from my body; a simple enough task, but he worried because I had shown him how some humans were harder to possess than others. How long had we been together? Sycamore decided that he had neither the time nor the patience to disrupt his work unnecessarily. Better to use his current host until the very end – an end which had to come.
By now, the city watch were likely discovering the bodies I'd been leaving behind. It was only a matter of time before they followed the trail and caught up with me. Sycamore would select a new host then, someone from the Scientists' hierarchy with access to the Fusion. There, he could meddle with the ether reactor, disable the shield and cannons, allow the monsters of the wasteland to wreak carnage on Old Castle's streets. With access to the Fusion, he could cause a city-wide catastrophe that dealt with every murderer at once instead of one at a time.
The citizens had no idea what I had brought to their world. Venturing deeper into the west, we skirted the Tinman District, not a particularly nice part of Old Castle. The Scientists ruled, but the north and south were their main territories, so that was where the bulk of the wealth went. East and west were home to the larger population, the drones of society's hive, and the streets were not so clean there, the houses not so luxurious. I was vaguely aware that I had lodgings in the Tinman District, but did I live there alone? Was anyone missing me? What had I lost? Something important . . . something I had once sworn I'd never forget.
The banality of life in this region was advantageous to the Magicians; it helped them avoid the unwanted attentions of the ruling caste. So when the ghoul led me down a stinking alley, where darkness stalked and even the filth kept old secrets, to the back door of a decrepit building, I assumed that we had arrived at one of the many Magicians' dens in the area. But the words burned into the chipped and worn wood of the door told a different story.
Dark as charcoal, the words were a simplified form of an ancient alphabet, not unlike magical script. Salabese, the language of the Gardeners. Loosely translated, the words read: Cleanse your spirit. But to Sycamore, they might as well have said: Purchase empty promises.
Clay Hysan gave a gurgle of encouragement and his ghoul collapsed to a black puddle which oozed through the gap under the door. Sycamore had me draw the knife from my pocket and push the door open. It swung closed behind me.
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